Clare Bronfman confirms she is comfortable with Mark Geragos being her attorney despite his daughter, Teny Geragos, representing her Vanguard – and co-defendant, Keith Alan Raniere.

By Village Diane

Here are some of my thoughts and observations on today’s hearing.

The hearing started late, 4:30 instead of 4:00 PM because a previous case ran late.

The first thing you notice about Clare is how thin she is. Although she was wearing loose clothing, you could see how stick-thin her arms are, and how tiny her shoulders. Her shoulder blades protrude in the back, and sharply when she crosses her arms in front. It certainly looks as if she is still on the NXIVM diet.

Before the hearing, Clare was smiling and laughing with Mark Geragos and the outside lawyer brought in to help Clare with the Curcio case, I believe her name is Donna Newman. As the time to start the hearing grew nearer, Clare seemed to become more preoccupied, and her smiles seemed forced. The lawyers were in good spirits. Geragos kept up a steady banter. He is quite the raconteur.

Some people say they see an aura of evil around Clare, but I don’t see it. The most significant thing about her is how insignificant she looks. You would not notice her in a crowd. Small framed, glasses; unmemorable features. You should pardon the stereotype: she looks like everybody’s high school Latin teacher. Only thinner, much thinner.

Judge Garaufis proceeded to thoroughly explain the conflict of interest issues. He asked Clare how she had found Garagos. Clare said she found him by researching online. The judge joked that it was like online dating.

He asked Clare if someone had personally recommended Garagos to her. I think Clare said no, but I can’t be sure as I found it hard to hear her at times.

There was a discussion about the trust used to pay for Raniere’s lawyers, and whether certain expenses are paid together or separately. Clare said separately.

“The wealthy scion typically appears expressionless in court, but was unusually lively Tuesday — until the government lawyers walked in and she suddenly tensed up. It wasn’t clear why she was so perturbed.

“Bronfman … came to court in a grey sweater, navy blue pants and an Apple watch around her left wrist…

“Bronfman … confirmed that once the money set aside in a trust for their legal bills runs out, her co-defendants will have to pay their own way…

“Tuesday’s hearing was the last of seven Curcio hearings for all of the defendants in the Nxivm case, and the judge ended the day by patting himself on the back for making it through.

“’That’s a record for one case,’ he said.”

Teny Geragos represents Keith Raniere. She says that her first duty will be to her client, Keith Raniere, despite the fact that her father, Mark Geragos, represents co-defendant Clare Bronfman, [who incidentally is paying both father and daughter for their legal services.]Mark Geragos was in court today and had to advise Clare to stop staring at the prosecutors.

I don’t know that conserving money is Clare’s primary motive here, but the way things are going, effectively does that.

And I’m not sure just how much Clare really has left, though there’s not yet a good accounting. But to make her $100 million bail, she had to have family members sign off for half of it, a sign that she’s starting to run low. From what I did see of the assets listed as collateral, and revelations about the trusts set up at Goldman Sachs, she doesn’t have a lot of sources of ready cash left.

If Clare did give a third of the company that holds the island to Keith, she might have to sell the island to cash out, unless she has enough liquidity to buy out his share – and possibly that of a third partner of ACK, as well. So she may not come out of this with her property holdings intact.

Depending on what her legal debacle costs her, plus the toll of seizures and restitution, with possible taxes owed as well, and on top of that the liability of civil suits for damages that will probably be filed against here, she might well get cleaned out of remaining cash and liquid assets. She might be reduced to living off just the income from the $25 million trusts, which isn’t exactly going to put her in the poorhouse, but will leave her unable to live the life to which she had become accustomed.

“Shoulder blades protrude in the back” sounds like a classic description of an anorexic, at least in a country where malnutrition isn’t an issue.

I always thought that Clare was the older sister, until I was looking something up recently and noticed that she’s actually 3 years younger than Sara – something she’s done over the years, has been hard on her.

I think the record number of Curcio hearings, is an indication of how Bronfman’s lawyers are going to drag out every detail of this case.

The record number of Curcio hearings is an indication of the record number of fellow defendants that are being paid by one defendant and the record number of conflicts of interest among the various lawyers. Lawyers always drag out every detail in every case that they can (assuming they’re being paid), that’s their job.

Very few clients give their lawyers a blank checkbook, which means that instead, attorneys almost always exercise a certain amount of so-called judicial economy, only dragging out some of the most likely productive details, and can’t engage in the shotgun approach of dragging everything out far as possible, or carry out so-called scorched-earth legal tactics. My point is that with Bronfman, we’re likely to see the very extreme of lawyering and legal maneuvering, and the case dragged out more than usual, which is just what we’re seeing so far.

Evidently Clare’s game plan, keeping all the defendants united, especially by bankrolling their defense, crumbled so now it”s every woman for herself.
I bet she even deserts Keith, who spent her money like water.

Allison comrs out the biggest loser in my opinion. She lost everything, even her sanity.

One must keep in mind all the girls and women NXIVM hurt; otherwise, decent folks might be sucked into forgiving when no one has ever yet been truly, honestly remorseful.

Let’s not forget the two suspicious suicides. I wonder if they will ever be closely looked at or just forgot about.

Too bad we couldn’t…force the truth out of Keith and the 5 women who went into that hotel room.